Obama Scraps Bush-era Missile Defense for New Plan

Inhofe Decries Cancellation of Missile Defense Shield
On the floor of the U.S. Senate, Inhofe expressed outrage that the Obama Administration has cancelled a third missile defense site scheduled to be deployed in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Admin Officials Head to Poland, Czech Rep. to Kill Missile Defense
weekly standard
Obama administration officials are on their way to Poland and the Czech Republic to deliver very bad news. The administration intends to cancel completely the missile defense sites that had been promised to these governments by the previous administration. This represents a complete capitulation to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who had demanded that the proposed deployments be halted as a price for improved relations. Ironically, the Obama administration, which is appeasing Russia in the hopes that Moscow will help put pressure on Iran, has made this mammoth concession just a few days after Moscow declared that it had no intention of supporting sanctions against Iran.
The consequences of this action in Eastern Europe, especially in Ukraine and in other countries that feel vulnerable to Russian power, will be disastrous. It is a major American retreat in the face of Russian bullying. And we will get absolutely nothing for it.

Obama scraps Bush-era missile defense for new plan
CNN
The United States is overhauling Bush-era plans for a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe, based partly on the latest analysis of Iran’s offensive capabilities, President Obama said Thursday.

The “new missile defense architecture in Europe … will provide capabilities sooner, build on proven systems and offer greater defenses against the threat of missile attack than the… program” that former President George W. Bush proposed, Obama said.

Obama said the change of gears was based on an “updated intelligence assessment” about Iran’s ability to hit Europe with missiles.

The Islamic republic’s “short- and medium-range” missiles pose the most current threat, he said, and “this new ballistic missile defense will best address” that threat.

Gates, speaking from the Pentagon immediately after the president’s announcement, denied the United States was “scrapping” missile defense.

“This new approach provides a better missile defense capability for our forces in Europe, for our European allies and eventually for our homeland than the program I recommended almost three years ago,” said Gates, who was defense chief in the last two years of the Bush administration and stayed on when Obama took office.

The Bush-era proposal called for the U.S. to set up a radar site in the Czech Republic and 10 missile interceptors in Poland to counter the threat of Iran launching long-range missiles at America’s allies in Europe
The Bush administration had cited the perceived nuclear threat from Iran as one of the key reasons it wanted to install the missile shield in Eastern Europe.
But a 60-day review mandated by Congress and ordered by Obama recommended the new approach that was unveiled Thursday.
American officials from Obama on down insisted Thursday’s announcement does not reflect any lesser commitment to European defense.
But the U.S. reversal is likely to please Russia, which had fiercely opposed the plan.
Obama has been seeking a stronger relationship with Russia and better cooperation from the Kremlin to support tough U.N. economic sanctions against Iran if it continues to pursue its nuclear ambitions.

There was no immediate comment Thursday morning from Russian officials, although Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations grinned when asked if he had heard the announcement. “Oh, yes,” the Russian envoy, Vitaly Churkin, said with a smile.

Missile defense has been a sore point in relations between Washington and Moscow, with Russia believing the shield would ultimately erode its strategic nuclear deterrent.
A U.S. delegation held high-level meetings Thursday in Poland and the Czech Republic to discuss the missile defense system. Officials in both countries confirmed the system would be scrapped.

In a statement, Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer said that Obama told him in a Wednesday phone call that the United States was shelving its plans. Fischer did not say what reason Obama gave him for reconsidering.

A spokeswoman at the Polish Ministry of Defense also said the program had been suspended.

“This is catastrophic for Poland,” said the spokeswoman, who declined to be named in line with ministry policy.

Poland and the Czech Republic had based much of their future security policy on getting the missile defenses from the United States. The countries share deep concerns of a future military threat from the east — namely, Russia — and may look for other defense assurances from their NATO allies.

House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) issued the following statement today strongly opposing the Obama Administration’s decision to eliminate the U.S. missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic:

“Scrapping the U.S. missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic does little more than empower Russia and Iran at the expense of our allies in Europe. It shows a willful determination to continue ignoring the threat posed by some of the most dangerous regimes in the world, while taking one of the most important defenses against Iran off the table. Since taking control of Congress, House Democrats have cut our missile defense budget by $1.2 billion, undermining our commitment to our allies and weakening our national security. I urge the President to reconsider this ill-advised decision, stand with our allies, and do what’s right for the safety and security of the American people.”

Wild Thing’s comment…….
The Leftists will never learn that defense PREVENTS wars.Comrade Barack is taking orders from the Soviets.
Just like Ted Kennedy calling Russia and undercutting Reagan.
This is friggin surreal.
This is nothing short of wicked and evil. Unbelievably shameful. The Marxists in the White House and the State Department have reversed everything we have worked for during the past nearly 30 years. The Eastern Europeans stuck their necks out, trusting us, and we have betrayed them shamefully. This will not end well. I keep thinking of what happened at Yalta, and how we handed those poor people over to Stalin — who then went back on his part of the bargain and enslaved them for nearly half a century. For shame.

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague”.”

~~Marcus Tullius Cicero